“No, not anymore. I locked myself in there once after he…after he hurt me. He changed the doorknob the day after.” I couldn’t look Alexander in the eye. Ivan’s abuse was written all over my face like a billboard. Bright colors. Shimmering lights. Look here! Look here! Abused wife walking.
“Dammit,” he growled, searching the room again. “Take the chair from your makeup vanity, go in there, and shove the chair under the handle at an angle. Don’t come out unless I’m at the door telling you it’s safe.”
I nodded, my body starting to shake.
“You have to be strong for me, Marisha.” He leaned down and curved his hand around the back of my head, pulling it forward so that our foreheads touched. “No matter what you hear. No matter what happens. Stay in there.”
“Please don’t die. You can’t die and leave me behind.” Crying. I couldn’t stop crying. “I need you!”
“And you’ll have me, just as soon as I end the piece of shit downstairs.”
He kissed me, and I wished he’d press his mouth harder to mine. I wanted the full experience of kissing him, even if it hurt like hell against my bruised, busted lips. But there was no time for romance. No time for comfort.
The faint clicking of dress shoes on marble floors made me stiffen and Alexander turned to look at the entrance to the bedroom.
“Go now, Marisha. Go.”
I ran to the vanity and grabbed the mahogany chair. It was heavy, but adrenaline rushed through my veins as I hauled it to the bathroom and closed the door quickly, shoving the back beneath the door handle. I wiggled the knob, trying to pull the door open. The knob turned, but the angled chair kept the door wedged shut.
My imagination ran wild.
Alexander was out there with Ivan.
Loose-cannon-Ivan who, when he lost his temper, could not, and would not, control himself.
He would kill Alexander at the first chance he got. I couldn’t let that happen.
I stared at the chair, guilt joining the adrenaline to make me feel ill as I coped with the fact that I was safe right now, whilst Alexander was putting his life on the line to save me from a loveless, dangerous marriage. My face ached from Ivan’s fists and my arms throbbed where he’d grabbed me. It was almost like my body was trying to warn me to stay where I was.
And yet…I still found myself reaching for the chair, my heart desperate to move it, desperate to run out into the house and do whatever I had to do to save Alexander. Even if whatever I had to do involved dying.
I’d die for him.
Without question.
But my brain repeated Alexander’s words.
Stay in the bathroom, no matter what I heard.
Don’t leave the bathroom, until his voice told me to.
A violent crashing sound made my heart fall into my stomach and I couldn’t breathe.
Hesitant fingers flexing, I reached for the chair again.
I had to do something…
Chapter Twenty-one
Alexander
From below me, a glass smashed loudly and Ivan cursed in Russian, an insult I hadn’t heard in many years. Someone replied, and I presumed it to be his personal bodyguard, Decatur.
I descended the stairs quietly, already knowing that regardless of what I said to Ivan tonight, there would only be one outcome… he had to die.
Not just for putting his hands on Marisha, though of course that was the main motivation for me. Ivan was a proud man and there was no way he would let Marisha go. Even if he didn’t want her anymore, he’d rather kill her than give her up.
No, Ivan had to die for it all.
Our surveillance of Ivan had uncovered many things, including tonight's meeting against some of our biggest rivals. I had talked my father into letting Ivan remain in the fold—for his European connections and his influence with the Italians, among other things—so I felt in part responsible for Ivan building a wave of ill intentions and bad blood behind our backs, but there was a reason I was the future king.
I had eyes on the man, eyes that never slept.
And now he’d pay.
Ivan was going to make a move against my family.
Marisha, like most, thought Ivan was trying to make good on his deal with my father. She thought he was trying to save the business agreement, that he feared Bratva retribution for his failure. But he’d never intended to honor the agreement at all. And I couldn’t bring the truth to light until I had all the facts. Now, I knew enough.
I was going to kill him, here and now, but even if I didn’t, he’d suffer a worse fate once his twisted dealings were made public. The proof was coming to light. Tonight would end up being a mercy killing, though he deserved no mercy.
Ivan thought he was slick and had my family fooled, when really it was the other way around. He was the animal caught in a trap of his own making. He was the hunted. And I, hot blood coursing through my veins, had always been the hunter. No one fucked with my family and lived to see a new day.
Yes, tonight, Ivan shall die for all of his sins.
I took another quiet step down, my ears pricked as he continued muttering to himself, cursing over and over, Marisha’s name slipping from his tongue like insults to the Devil. His shoes made soft noises as he paced the room beside the foyer, and I tried to get an idea of where he might have been in regards to the doorway. The element of surprise was always the best one.
When the soft sounds of his feet stopped, I decided that was my moment and I descended the final five stairs before entering the room to the left.
Decatur was standing just past the doorway against a wall.
“I wondered when you would show,” Ivan snarled from across the room. Aside from quickly assessing if he was holding a weapon, I ignored him, which only seemed to stoke his anger. But I didn’t give a flying fuck. I was in control here.
“Decatur, nice to see you,” I spoke casually, standing next to the bodyguard, and Ivan’s most trusted employee. His stance didn’t falter, stoic, arms crossed over his chest and underarm holster bulging.
“Mr. Vasiliev, always a pleasure.” He nodded, eyes fixed across the room at Ivan.
“Give Mr. Zolotov and me some space.” I clapped the other man on the shoulders, resisting the urge to smile sadistically as I glanced over at Ivan, whose gaze grew wide and his face flushed with a fresh wave of anger.
When Decatur began to leave, Ivan sputtered to life. “Where in the fuck are you going, Decatur? Get your ass in here! You don’t leave unless I say you can!”
Decatur didn’t seem to register Ivan’s venom-laced shouting, and in a moment, he was out of sight and I heard the soft clicks of the front door opening and closing.
Now Decatur was out of the way, I tucked my gun away, and focused on the room around me. As I’d suspected, this was Ivan’s study. Long rows of books were on one side, and the other wall was lined with tall windows. His desk sat in the corner, a lit fireplace just to the right of it. Paneling along the back wall was open to reveal several small screens which showed various parts of the house on them, and I realized that the doors on the front closed to make it blend in to the walls. Just as Marisha had said, cameras everywhere.
Ivan had turned away from me now to face the screens, a glass of something dark in his hand, another broken at his feet. I glanced at the screen, seeing myself and Marisha against his pool table, her legs wrapped around my waist as I fucked into her, and I smiled. Such a fond memory.
On another screen I could see myself now, standing behind Ivan and he raised a glass at me, before turning to face me again with a smile. The image changed seconds later, showing Marisha in the master bathroom, her body tense as she stood next to the chair wedged beneath the doorknob.
“How is it that my bodyguard follows your orders, Alexander?” he asked, the hint of a growling anger still in his throat, yet a seed of knowledge quieting his rage somehow.
“If he didn’t listen to me, he’d be dead. You forget who I am, Ivan.” I poured the promise of blood
into my voice.
Ivan walked to his desk and poured another drink from the decanter. He slid it across the desk towards me and I watched him warily. “Take it. You’re going to need it.” He smirked like he thought I should be afraid.
The fucking arrogance of him.
His bodyguard was gone. And I was the goddamn Bratva prince. Heir to the throne. Killer of traitors. The cards were stacked against him in every which way. Yet here he was, acting like he was untouchable.
I gave a small shake of my head and pushed my hands into my pockets as I walked towards the desk and picked up the glass.
“What’s this?” I sniffed it, giving a small grimace. “Whiskey?” I tsked. “You also forget who you are, Ivan.”
“You can’t fight change, Alexander,” he replied, moving around the other side of his desk.
I watched him carefully, fully aware of every hand movement he made, and every intention he had for going for the gun that I knew was in his top drawer. A man like Ivan—regardless of what he tried to make out with his American whiskey and his American food—didn’t change his ways so easily. The gun; a Makarov pistol, would still be there, like it had been when I was just a teenager and he was trying to impress me with it, fully aware that I was going to be the Bratva King someday and he needed to keep me on his side.
“You should always remember your roots,” I replied, “you taught me that, remember, Ivan?”
He smiled. “Yes, I remember.”
I took a sip of the whiskey regardless, and we stared at one another across his desk. Hate and rage filling the room until it became suffocating. Both of us waiting for the other to make a move. After tonight, there would be no going back. Only one of us would still be breathing.
“Where is she?” he asked, placing his glass on the desk.
I nodded towards the screens as I put my glass down too. “You didn’t see?”
“No, I saw you arrive and then came straight in here. Decatur keeps a close watch on Marisha, but I have been too busy to review his recent recordings. I watched the older footage. The footage from our dinner…” he jerked his head towards the screens, “I was too busy watching you fuck her while I met with your father mere steps away,” he replied through gritted teeth.
I glanced at the screens again, finding a video playing on repeat. I almost grinned at the sight.
The footage was obviously taped from the outside of our mansion looking in. There were enough bushes on that side of the house to hide the peeping tom, and glare from the window glass marred the view.
And what a view it was.
Me fucking Marisha on the pool table.
I supposed Decatur had taken the footage. He needed to follow orders, after all, and stay in Ivan’s good graces so I supposed playing spying pervert was a task he couldn’t refuse.
I took another sip of my whiskey. “You really should take better care of your things, Ivan. You’re losing your touch.”
“Yes, it would seem so wouldn’t it. I’d had my suspicions that the little whore was cheating on me, but I couldn’t think who would be stupid enough to get involved with her. What man would risk everything for a little piece of trash like Marisha?” He smirked, knowing how each word he uttered against her was grating my nerves and fraying my temper more and more. “I have her followed everywhere. I track her phone. She doesn’t fucking go anywhere unless I say so. So how, I wondered, could she be seeing someone else… and then I thought about you. Alexander Vasiliev, a self-proclaimed womanizer. And then I thought of all the times you’d had a chance to be alone with my wife.” He gritted his teeth, his nostrils flaring in anger.
I smiled. “That was intuitive of you.”
“I hope she was worth it, because prince or not, I’m going to teach you a lesson on manners. On touching what isn’t yours, and the consequences of what happens when you don’t keep your sticky fingers to yourself.”
I chuckled, unafraid of Ivan and his petty threats. I’d destroyed men like him time and time again. Tonight was just another destruction, another man who’d had retribution coming his way for a long while. How many times had he broken the trust with my family in the business world, yet covered his tracks so as not to be discovered? When business deals had gone wrong, when we’d lost bids on real estate that would have benefited our endeavors, had it been Ivan on the other end pulling the strings? I couldn’t prove anything right now, but I believed it to be true.
Holding my arms open wide I smiled cockily. “What can I say? She’s a beautiful girl, and I couldn’t resist.”
“You should have tried harder!” he roared, fury flaring in his eyes as he began to lose control again.
“She was the forbidden fruit; I had to have a taste,” I taunted, nodding towards the screens behind him. “And as you can see, I did have a taste and she was delicious, my friend.” My smile split my face, like a wolf watching its prey.
Ivan swiped at his glass and it slid from the desk and smashed on to the floor alongside the previous glass he’d smashed.
“That wasn’t the only time,” I said, watching his hand move to his desk drawer. “No, I also fucked her when we all went to dinner at The Willow Tree. I took her upstairs while you talked with my father about business. I fucked her so hard that she could barely walk straight afterwards.”
“I’m going to kill you!” he snarled, and I laughed in his face.
“How you didn’t notice anything when we came back to the table is beyond me.” I smirked, enjoying tormenting him. I would enjoy killing him even more.
“You cocky piece of shit,” he spat out.
“And today too… right out in the open where anyone could have seen us. Where anyone could have seen your wife fucking another man.”
He slid open the drawer and I pulled out my gun from the inside of my jacket and tutted at him. “Back away from it, Ivan.”
He glanced down at the drawer and then back up to me.
“You’re so predictable, no wonder she couldn't keep her hands off me,” I taunted. “Honestly, did you even change positions? Or was it always missionary, in and out, and leave her dry and wanting? God, the way that woman orgasms. It’s fucking heaven.”
His nostrils flared. “When I’ve killed you, I’m going to kill her too, but I’ll take it slowly with her,” he snapped, his eyes cold.
“Is that so?”
“I’ll put her to work in one of my brothels and I’ll have every man in the city lay with her. Marisha will be used up and begging for death by the end of the year, and only then will I kill her. And I’ll do it on your grave, you spoiled little fuck!” he roared, his temper finally fraying enough for him to lose control.
He reached for the gun in his drawer, despite my warning, and I pulled the trigger on my gun. My bullet ricocheted off the top of his desk as he ducked below it and yelled at me in Russian.
I watched his hand reach up to try and dip inside the drawer again and I let off another round. This one chipped the edge of the desk and he yelled at me to stop. It was a shame to destroy such a beautiful piece of furniture, but it would be worth it when he was dead.
“There’s only one way out of this for you, Ivan.” I narrowed my eyes, watching his slight movements below the desk
“For me?” he roared. “For me! You arrogant little shit. You and your father think you run this city still, but you don’t know anything. There are spies on every corner, just waiting to take him down. Even after all this time, you still thought I needed your family's acceptance,” he laughed loudly.
My ears pricked up at this new information; were there other traitors in our midst?
The quick death I had planned for him suddenly seemed impossible. I needed to question Ivan and find out what he knew. His long, slow, torturous death would be much more satisfying for me given what he’d done to Marisha’s face, but I needed to get her away from here to make that happen. She didn’t need to see me torture a man; bastard wife-beater or not.
“We should talk. Perhaps we ca
n help one another,” I tried, already knowing that it wouldn’t work. I’d pissed him off too much and now we’d have to do this the hard way.
“Help? What are you not understanding, Alexander? I don’t need or want your help. Not before you slept with my whore of a wife, and certainly not after. I’m going to enjoy this.”
Ivan stood up, his shoulders were wide and square, the beginnings of a paunch settling above the waistband of his suit pants. He’d always been a man to take care of himself, but the past year must have taken its toll on him because he’d aged, badly in fact. You would have thought that having a beautiful young wife would have made a man, but it had done the opposite to him.
I aimed the gun at him as he reached for the Makarov again, his gaze on me, almost daring me to shoot him.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned.
Ivan smirked. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”
The sound of footsteps whispered behind me and I watched as Ivan’s gaze strayed momentarily and he smiled. I turned my head to one side, hoping it was Decatur returning and not who I feared it was. It was the bodyguard, and the tightness that had sprouted quickly in my chest eased.
“No, I think not,” Ivan said with a smile as wide as a Cheshire cat. “Despite what you think, you’re still just a little boy and this is a man’s world.” He reached for the gun again and I fired at him without hesitation. The bullet hit his hand and he screamed in pain and clutched it to his chest.
His gaze flitted between Decatur and me, slowly putting the pieces together, and I smiled in satisfaction as the realization hit him where it hurt. Ivan, like most men, demanded loyalty. He just hadn’t realized that Decatur had been loyal to me and my family for many years now.
“You!” he roared at Decatur. “After everything I’ve done for you!”
Decatur came to stand by me, his hand instinctively reaching for his own gun. “Will there be anything else, Mr. Vasiliev?”
“No, thank you, Decatur. I’ll make sure that you’re compensated well for your loyalty.”
Deviant Prince: A Forbidden bad boy Mafia Romance. (Born to Darkness Duet Book 1) Page 16